


many shades of love

by PenelopeJadewing



Series: Hambleton's Ice Creamery [5]
Category: Hambleton's Ice Creamery, Original Work
Genre: Fluff and Humor, M/M, Twoshot, he means well, hye gives dori a hard time, talkin about love, the different types of love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:01:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25222804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenelopeJadewing/pseuds/PenelopeJadewing
Summary: It's fairly normal for Sundance to play mediator amongst the vast diversity within his little friend group. He finds himself a little out of his depth though, when the conversation turns to something he has rather limited experience with: romance. He wants to help Dori, Hye, AND Ji, but he also kinda wants to smack them all.
Relationships: Sundance Merryweather & Hye Montegomery
Series: Hambleton's Ice Creamery [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1479212





	many shades of love

At no point would Sundance Merryweather ever claim to have great experience in the field of romance. Given the things he’d personally seen, it was just a bad idea all around, to even think about it. However, he’d watched enough films and knew enough songs and heard enough people gushing over themselves to feel like maybe he could assume with some amount of certainty what it was supposed to look and sound like. Shared glances that lingered too long, little hand brushes that the givers thought were so much more subtle than they actually were, smiling when one looked in that person’s direction, the intentional accentuation of the body’s best assets in the stance, aiming for the perfect curve of the hips and so easily failing—these were the hallmarks of The Crush, were they not? The red flags, the street signs. Recognizable to most.

Giuseppe knew these rites well and performed them so often, Sundance tended to lose track of when or at whom they were directed most of the time. He’d only known the ginger for a little over a year, and it had taken this long to only begin to suss out when he was flirting and when he was just being kind. Even now, as the lot of them all lounged in creaky plastic deck chairs along the outside edge of the dock that ledged the beach cafe Antoni’s, with the sun finishing its blazing decent over distant waves and little hills on the peninsula far outside the harbor, Giuseppe sat at one of the umbrella’ed tables with his date, Jeremiah, and smiled warmly at the waitress as she took their late dinner order. If Sundance had only just met him, he might’ve squinted at the way Giuseppe met the waitress’s pleasant gaze with that crooked grin of his and playfully returned her ‘hon’ before she moved on to the next table. But it was Jeremiah’s dark-skinned hand that Sep ghosted his fingers over from across the table. That was enough. 

Despite all this, Sundance’s own waffling when it came to noting the difference, even he could tell how the waitress’s attention shifted when she got to their table. They were all seated as they usually were when Giuseppe brought a date on a group outing—with him and his date seated to themselves, and the rest clustered around one of the larger tables the restaurant could offer. A unique experience for Sundance; it had always just been he and his parents, sometimes Hye, until last year. 

As such a motley little crew, they tended to draw a lot of attention, to Sundance’s frequent dismay. He had lost count of how many times waitrons had recognized him and made things awkward. And if nothing else, there was a lot of color between them all; even moreso on days when Ji could join them, like this evening.

But tonight, for once, Sundance was not the one attracting the waitron’s attention.

And it was driving Sundance to distraction.

The fact that Dori seemed to be completely and utterly oblivious to the way she was looking at him. Talking to him. Laughing at things he said. 

This was standard. Typical. _Obvious._ This was the scene from every romance film, the running gag in every comedy. He couldn’t just be seeing things. He wasn’t experienced like Giuseppe, but he wasn’t stupid. She was giggling, tucking her hair carefully out of her face, shifting her weight just so, and Dori refused to engage with her. Oh, he was pleasant enough, as always; Ulysses Doorman was never rude. It was something Sundance admired. But he hardly looked at her. He seemed so much more enthralled with the menu selection and asking what Lemon Beurre Blanc was.

It was enough that Sundance had stopped listening to Hye beside him; his ears twitched at the occasional puff of breath whenever the werewolf wavered too close while lost in his own enthusiasm, and he heard the words ‘moon’ and ‘bubble field’, so he got the gist. But Sundance couldn’t focus on anything else while he had to watch the waitress’s face grow slowly more and more disappointed, until she finally took down the last notes, stopped trying to make conversation, and curtly told them that she’d have their food right out. Then she went on her way, sighing and shaking her head. Like she was disappointed in herself.

And Dori just dug his book out of his satchel and casually cracked it open to his bookmark.

Frown pinching his brow, Sundance pondered carefully for just a moment, before he leaned forward and tapped Dori’s arm from across the table.

The purple head rose attentively—his headband matched his hair quite aesthetically tonight. “Hm? Yeah?”

Sundance nodded his head in the general direction the waitress had gone. “Did you notice?” He was mostly curious. Maybe a little offended on the waitress’s behalf…

Dori’s eyebrows rose. Surprise. “Notice what?”

“The waitress.”

“What about her?”

For a moment, Sundance was torn between relief and mounting exasperation, if only because he could vividly envision the rejection on the waitress’s face. All that effort, and Dori truly hadn’t noticed a thing? It seemed like such a shame. 

Hye’s shoulder bumped his and the werewolf injected himself into the conversation rather loudly with a, “Oh, she was _totally_ flirting.”

“What?” Dori drawled skeptically, shaking his head and absently gazing back into his book. “Nah, she’s just being nice.”

“You don’t show off your hips to someone if you’re just ‘being nice’,” Hye pointed out. Sundance nodded in agreement; he was glad to know he hadn’t been imagining things.

The skepticism crashed together with the previous confusion on Dori’s face and he frowned up at them over the rim of his book. “Is that what she was doing?”

The sheer level of obliviousness hit Hye like a truck and sent him sagging back into his chair, while Sundance just sighed. Now that he had the confirmation of Hye’s observation on top of his own, he was sure of it. That poor woman had been throwing out all the right signals, trying so hard to garner the attention she desired. But Dori was just being obtuse. 

“I just assumed she was nervous,” said the corner seat. All eyes turned to the other side of Hye, where a little mountain of oversized hoodie had settled itself onto the table, the vampire bending low into the shadow of the short concrete wall that penned the cafe’s outdoor eating area, hiding away from what little daylight remained on the horizon. With his hood up, he looked less like a person using their arms as a pillow and more like just… a pile of worn-out 8oz cotton-poly.

Hye let out a ‘psh’. “Of course she was! She was putting herself out there like nobody’s business.”

The pile of hoodie snorted. “Or she’s had a long day.”

“Yeah, sure. I wouldn’t expect _you_ to understand.” The werewolf folded his arms over his chest, lips pouting. “I bet you haven’t even been on a date.”

At this, Sundance winced a bit. There went the first shot into Hye’s foot. He nudged him with an elbow. “Actually, neither have you.”

Hye’s pout intensified. “M-Maybe, but I’ve read books. And watched things.”

For the briefest flicker of a moment, that made Sundance mildly concerned. _What kinds of things, exactly?_ But he didn’t have the time to question it aloud; Sam spoke up, completing the quintuplet with a shrug of his broad shoulders, lounging in the seat across from Ji.

“It doesn’t really matter which, anyways, guys,” he said, before slurping a gulp from his iced tea.

“It does!” Sundance objected. “Didn’t you see her face? She was crushed; I feel bad for her.”

Ji’s head rose about an inch, just enough for Sundance to make out the curl of his lip from under the shadow of the hood. “Why?”

“Why??” Hye repeated, pivoting around to stare Ji down. “Are you heartless??”

Ji barely blinked. “Yes.”

“Because it takes a lot of courage to lay yourself bare before another!” Hye pressed a hand against his chest and stared dramatically off into the middle distance, in the general direction of the dying remains of the sunset. “Rejection stings all the more when you’ve made yourself vulnerable.”

“I-I didn’t reject anything,” Dori sputtered a little, caught between his usual calm and the implications they were tossing his way. His fingers lingered between the pages of his now closed book, listlessly saving his place. “I didn’t even notice.”

Hye’s hands went up and out, splayed to the sky. “Even worse! Haven’t you ever gone out of your way, done something for someone else at great inconvenience to you, thinking the payoff would be worth it, only for that person to completely miss it?? That’s the worst thing ever!”

While Dori shrunk a little under the illustration, Ji just rolled his eyes and groaned through his teeth. 

“Counting on other people to notice anything is the dumb thing,” the vampire droned. “Most people can’t read minds. Plus, it’s kinda a lame move to try and tell someone something so important without actually telling them anything. That’s just manipulative bulls***.”

Despite himself, Sundance could understand that perspective. It certainly would be a whole lot easier to navigate these things if people just came right out and said what they were thinking or wanting. Then this whole point would be null and void, and Sundance could stop guessing and people like the waitress could stop being disappointed. 

But unfortunately, that wasn’t how things worked. 

Before Sundance could say as much, Hye retorted with a surprising amount of passion. “ _No_ , it’s _not_!! It’s all part of the game of love!”

Ji clicked his tongue. “Tch. And what would you know about that, Mr. Homeschooled-Rich-Kid?”

“More than you, Mr. Pessimist Meanie-pants!”

This was devolving rapidly. Sundance put out his hands over the table in their direction, garnering their attention with a few flaps of his fingers. “Okay, okay, calm down.”

“I’m perfectly calm,” was Ji’s muttered response. 

Hye just sagged back into his chair, folded his arms, and pouted all the harder, pointedly avoiding looking Ji’s way. Sundance sighed; honestly, the two of them bickered like a pair of toddlers.

“I…” Dori began, at last setting his book aside, “don’t really know much about it. The uh… ‘game of love’. It’s not really something I actively think about or anything.” With a pinch between his eyebrows and his blue eyes directionless with the weight of growing chagrin, he rubbed a hand up the back of his neck. Anxious. “Do you think I really hurt her feelings?”

That was the question, wasn’t it? Because like with everything else, it wasn’t as if the waitress was going to come back and tell them so beyond shadow of a doubt. Sundance needed to choose his response carefully; frustrated though he may be, he didn’t want Dori to feel too bad either. Dori was a decent person. If he truly hadn’t noticed a thing, that wasn’t necessarily his fault.

“I mean…” Sundance spoke slowly, gingerly shrugging one shoulder. “Maybe a little.”

“It’s her fault for getting bent outta shape for it,” Ji said, carefully sitting up, one hand pinching his hood to be sure it remained firmly over his head. “Dori didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Maybe not,” Sundance replied, equally careful, just with his words rather than actions. “But call it a missed opportunity.”

That made Ji snort derisively. “For what?”

“For ROMANCE!” Hye practically exploded. He had to slam his palms into the table, rattle the glasses and silverware, just to keep his body from pitching completely forward. “Imagine telling the story to your grandkids!”

Sam snickered a little, and hurried to cover his mouth, casually wipe away his smirk. “What, ‘we met at a cafe’?”

“YES! It’s such a quaint beginning!”

“As far as origin stories go,” suddenly, Giuseppe was leaning over from his table, chair balanced on two legs so he could poke his head between Dori’s and Sam’s shoulders, “that _is_ a little underwhelming.”

Ji gestured toward the new freckled face in their midst with a lazy open palm. “The only person here who has any grounds to talk about romance at all is Sep, okay? You only get a say if you’ve done it yourself.”

Well, in that case, Sundance could say a few things. But he would rather not. It would require a few long stories that he didn’t feel like dragging out of their closets.

“FINE!” Hye blurted and leaned forward across the table as far as he could manage without tipping anything over (though, he got close; Sundance had to reach out and move Hye’s lemonade away) and looked Giuseppe square in the eye, demanding his full attention. “Giuseppe, what’s the meaning of love?”

Oh, that was _certainly_ not the question being asked here.

Rightfully so, Giuseppe looked somewhat blindsided by the extremely broad query, his eyes widening before he choked on a bit of laughter and a loss for words. “Uhh—”

Dori raised a hand, gently waving Hye back at the same time as steadying Giuseppe’s fumbling. “Ah—how about… flirting? Like… how do you tell when somebody’s doing it? To you?”

A wince twisted Giuseppe’s face to one side, he clenched his teeth and measured his response carefully. “Ehh, that’s… not much easier. It’s still a pretty big question, and there’s not really one answer. Everybody has their own way of doing things. And it varies depending on what someone wants.”

“How do you do it, then?” Sam asked aside, not really moving his attention much further than his straw.

Giuseppe shrugged, one hand on the back of Dori’s chair to keep himself steady. “Depends. I use my hands a lot, I guess.”

“Oh yes, he’s _very_ handsy.” Jeremiah spoke up with his subtle lilt from across their table, smirking into his soda with more than enough implication to make his meaning clear. Sam choked on his tea. Giuseppe sputtered and hung his head to hide the way his ears started to redden. Sundance felt himself blush a little for his sake anyway, his mind very briefly going places he really didn’t want it to go. _Outta the gutter, stay outta the gutter…_ He shook the mental image away, sucking in a deep breath, grounding himself. None of _that_ was any of his business, not by any means. That was for Giuseppe and Giuseppe alone to know about; goodness, the ginger certainly brought home some interesting characters…

Hye’s boisterous confrontation, unperturbed by the brief hiccup in conversation, swiveled abruptly from Giuseppe to Dori and the werewolf stared him down. “Dori, what do you want!?”

“Wh—??” Dori jerked back, a bit jump-scared. “Why me?”

“Because we’re discussing you!”

“No, we’re not,” Ji argued, “we were talking about the waitress.”

“I mean, I’ll admit,” Giuseppe thankfully moved on before the two could begin to go at it again, “I am a little curious myself.”

Dori splayed a hand over his own collar, eyebrows raising and body twisting to face the ginger in surprise. “About me??”

“A little.”

“Yeah, me too,” said Hye, not moving from his aggressive lean-in. He was barely even blinking.

Sundance sighed and raised a hand over his forehead. This was not at all what he’d been aiming for when he brought it up. Maybe he should’ve just stayed quiet and left well-enough alone… He might’ve spared them all.

“U-Uh… well…” Dori leaned further back in his chair; the plastic legs on the back creaked a little. “I… I don’t know. It’s not like I have much to go on or anything; I just… I don’t buy much into movies and stuff—”

Ji threw up a hand. “ _Thank_ you.”

“—but I do like the idea of somebody who really knows me well.” Dori finished, casting Ji a brief glance that was a bit sharper than usual, which the vampire obviously ignored.

“Girlfriend?” Hye pressed, unblinking. “Boyfriend?”

Sundance’s hand whipped out before he could stop himself, swatting Hye in the arm. “Hye, cut it out! This isn’t an interrogation.”

“What??” Hye at last sat up, away from the table, and held his hands up helplessly. “I’m _curious_!”

“I don’t know,” Dori answered anyway, gently, despite his darting eyes. A bit jumpy, understandably so given the awkward topic, but still sturdy as an old oak. As usual, Dori demonstrated far more patience than Sundance could ever imagine himself showing, especially under such duress. “Like I said, it’s not something I really think about… not because I don’t want to, just… it doesn’t…” he waved his hands aimlessly in demonstration, “cross my mind. Hardly ever. It’s like I forget it’s a thing.”

“Even if you’re being flirted with straight to your face?” Hye prompted with a confused frown, to which Sundance hid his face further under his hand. Why couldn’t his best friend just let things lie?

“Like I said, I assumed she was being nice,” Dori shrugged a little. “That’s just… where my brain goes.”

Giuseppe grunted a little. “Imma be honest, my head goes somewhere entirely different.”

“I can tell you exactly where it goes,” said Jeremiah, scrolling through his phone now.

Once more, Hye was entirely unaffected by the implication in his words, while Sam just sporfled into his tea, Giuseppe continued to try to laugh away the heat in his face, and Ji groaned louder than necessary. Sundance stayed right where he was behind his hand. This conversation had gone on for far too long and it was showing in so many ways. 

The moment lasted three seconds, tops, before Giuseppe suddenly dropped from between Dori and Sam with a sudden, ungraceful squawk and a clatter of his chair. Just as abruptly, Jeremiah began to cackle, much harder than he should.

While the rest of them were left trying to figure out what had just happened, Giuseppe flailed his way back to his feet, grinning wolfishly at his date. “Oh, you done it now…”

Jeremiah dropped his phone onto the table and scrambled up from his chair, sending it clattering, to take off running. He wove through the bustling tables, ducked past a startled waitron, toward the far side of the restaurant building lit by the line of old gaslamps, laughing all the while. Two steps behind, Giuseppe followed, barely sprinting. This was no real chase. Just the game again. 

“How about you guys?” Dori said once they were gone, as if nothing at all had happened. “If I have to say what I want, it’s only fair if you do too.”

“Well, you didn’t really answer.” Sam stirred the ice in his glass with his straw, disturbing the lemon trapped at the bottom. “You just said you don’t think about it a lot.”

Dori held up a hand in self-defense. “ _And_ that I like the idea of someone who knows me.”

“Pretty sure that’s most people, so I don’t know if that counts.”

“Why not??”

“’Cause it doesn’t tell us about _you_!” Hye started to lean forward again, but Sundance managed to hold out a hand, catch him in the arm, stop round two of the third degree from being quite as intense as round one. 

“Sure it does. In context.” Dori wrapped his arms around himself loosely, catching Sundance’s attention immediately. 

This conversation had officially crossed into uncomfortable territory. Of course, it had already been so, but it had been part of the game before; part of the act, the banter, not physically impacting on any of them beyond the blush on Giuseppe’s face from before. But now it was _official_ official; undeniable. 

So he hooked his hand in Hye’s elbow, tugging to get his attention. He waited until the werewolf looked to him before he spoke, just so he could be sure Hye was paying attention. 

“Maybe give a little, get a little,” Sundance proposed. Maybe if he could distract Hye into talking, Dori could catch a breather. “How about you answer the question first? That’s fair, right?”

“Oh, sure!” Up and down went Hye’s head, bobbing agreeably, though a lack of smile displayed neutrality about the concept. He stared at Sundance for one, two, three seconds, blankly, blinking, before opening his mouth again. “What was the question?”

Behind Hye, Ji slid his elbows forward across the table, putting his face into his hands with a long and barely-contained sigh that came out through his teeth. 

“What do you want?” Dori supplied with a light gesture of his hand. “Flirting, romance.”

“Oh!” Hye gave a sloppy shrug. “I don’t care.”

Now, Sundance knew more context. Thus, he didn’t think twice about the answer. But then Ji practically exploded into sputters of incredulity, pulling his hands from his face to shrug them helplessly toward the night sky, where the stars were beginning to come out full force. 

“How is that _any_ different from his answer?” Ji spat derisively.

Hye cast him a glare. “ _Because_. It means I _have_ thought about it and decided that I’m not picky. As long as it happens to me one day and someone finds me, I’ll be happy.”

“I guarantee you change your mind within the year.” Ji sunk back into his chair, tilting his head back. Eyes closed, sharp chin raised and exposing his deathly-pale throat in his irritation. “You’re only eighteen. There’s no way you can be certain about anything.”

“Well then, Imma be certain about it just to spite you,” Hye sassed, ending with a raspberry in Ji’s direction, sending a bit too much spittle his way. Ji cringed away, lips curling and baring his fangs in a disgusted grimace. 

Why on earth did they ever think letting Ji and Hye sit side-by-side was a good idea? They should have known better. There was no point letting it continue on like this, so Sundance stood and rested his hands on Hye’s shoulders, tugging ever so subtly. “Okay—up. Trade places.”

Thankfully, Hye didn’t put up much of a fight. His ears drooped out to either side, but he begrudgingly slunk from his chair to Sundance’s, leaving Sundance to gratefully, wordlessly sink into Hye’s, placing himself between the bickering children. It put him further and Hye closer to Dori, which could potentially be an issue, but Sundance would rather wrestle with that diplomatic endeavor than continue watching the rabid dog fight that was the ire between the two cursed beings among them.

The best way to ease the tension was to distract Hye, so after a beat of awkward silence, Sundance once more looped his arm with Hye’s and tucked close to lean his head on his shoulder, where he could feel the warmth of Hye’s neck against the top of his head. “How do you imagine it? Your life, once it does happen.”

Almost immediately, Hye straightened, his ears perked, and he grinned. “Oh, all the normal stuff. We’ll get ice cream together and go on walks and hold hands and snuggle on the couch and do all the winks ‘n stuff and go shopping and visit museums and dance to random music—like what we do!” Hye looked down at Sundance, bared his teeth wider with his expanding smile.

Sundance instantly vacated Hye’s shoulder, sitting up, his stomach twisting. “No—Hye, we… we’ve talked about this. You can’t use us as an example. We’re not like that.”

Nose wrinkling, Hye seemed to shrug and wag his head with an expression that was both conceding and dismissive. “But we kinda are. It’s like, a grey area.”

“ _No_. It’s not. We’re just friends.”

“But I mean, it’s not _that_ different. Someone you’re dating is like, a really good friend.”

“ _NO_ , that’s—hnnngh.” Sundance bit his lip; he’d already expressed so much exasperation tonight, it was beginning to feel excessive. It would bring the mood down again. This wasn’t even the point of the conversation. He couldn’t allow himself to be derailed by a year-old debate that they’d already rehashed a hundred times. 

He also realized that biting his lip would most certainly have ruined his lipstick and gotten it all over his teeth. So he relaxed—ran his tongue over his teeth, followed by a swipe of his fingertip, just to be safe—and sighed.

“Never mind,” he said, “I’m not gonna argue about it now. We’re not talking about us right now.”

For the briefest of moments, Hye seemed to register the closing of the tired, uncomfortable subject and something like chagrin passed like a ghost over his face—brief and barely there. In response, he took Sundance’s wrist, where it looped under his arm much more loosely than before, and pulled it forward to his hand. It ensured that not only did Sundance have to come close enough that Hye could lean his head atop his hair, but that he could lace their fingers tightly together as well, the soft silk of Hye’s evening gloves a gentle chafe against Sundance’s palm.

“Okay,” Hye said in a small voice. “Sorry,” came after, even smaller.

Sundance just bit back a little smile and reached up with his free hand to gently pat him on the cheek. 

Inside, he sighed yet again. It seemed to make up a majority of his existence at this point—sighing. Some days, he sighed so much, it made him yawn. Not enough oxygen in his brain, no doubt. But he couldn’t help it. Between his flatmates and his friendship with Hye… Friendships were as much exasperating as they were lovely. 

Just like romance.

“I just,” Dori began at length, careful of the strange new atmosphere Hye and Sundance had created, for which Sundance felt a stab of remorse, “haven’t thought about it enough to give that kind of answer. I’m sorry, it’s just… how it is. I’ll be sure to let you know if I figure anything out in the future.”

Sundance himself bobbed with the heavy sigh Hye released, making his entire torso heave. “I guess that’s okay… I was just curious, that’s all. It’s not like, _suuuper_ important.”

Ji rolled his eyes dramatically enough that his head tilted with it. “All that fuss…”

Sundance nudged his ankle under the table with a toe of one of his tan docksides. The ankle jerked away, like the touch was made of sunlight. Ji cast a glare his direction, which Sundance returned with a pleading stare. After two empty beats between them, the vampire’s glare receded just enough for him to be the first to look away, shaking his head but relaxing ever so slightly all the same. 

“And how about you?” Hye said pointedly to Ji. “We could all answer the question and learn about each other.”

“Tch.” Ji didn’t bother to hide his derision—not that he ever did in the first place. “I didn’t agree to that. But I also have no reason not to tell you that I don’t want anything at all. I think romance is convoluted and unnecessary.”

“Of course you do,” was Hye’s resigned response. 

Before anything else could possibly be said between them and the bickering escalate once more, Sam gave his empty tea glass a shake, rattling the ice left behind, before setting it down before him on the table. “I wouldn’t mind somebody who’s weird, but I don’t exactly have time for that kind of thing. I’ve got a business to run.”

Hye whimpered a little, the sound rather loud with Sundance’s ears so close to him. “Hnnngh, you guys are _so_ not fun!!”

Giuseppe was right, though. All different answers. No consistency between them at all. Romance was as much a pinnable concept as… well, as Hye himself. 

Speaking of…

“Where did Giuseppe go, anyway?” Sundance raised his head to glance around, but didn’t glimpse the redhead in any nearby vicinity. He did, however, spot two waitrons making their way toward the group’s table. “He’s been gone a while.”

As the syllables left his lips, it occurred to him just why that might be. It made the blush creep back into his nose. Thankfully, the food arrived just then, so there was no immediate voicing of this thought, because there was no way the others didn’t think it as well.

Or at least… no way Sam or Ji didn’t. 

As each party member’s dinner was served to him, Sundance took notice of Dori’s interaction with the waitress, who’d returned inevitably since she was assigned to their table. She seemed somewhat business-oriented this time, but Dori made a bit more effort. He met her gaze more, offered a smile—it wasn’t flirting, no, Sundance could tell that much. It was more akin to his usual friendliness behind the counter, acting as if he wished to be good friends with any and all who crossed his path. But it was enough. A silent understanding seemed to pass between the two. The waitress relaxed, but flirted no more. Dori thanked her heartily, and called her by her name, which Sundance himself had entirely forgotten about, despite her name tag. 

And as the waitrons left them to eat, around them weaved Giuseppe and Jeremiah at last. Both looked a bit… flushed; Giuseppe particularly so, as well as being somewhat out of breath. A quick glance over, and Sundance spotted a dark patch on the left side of Giuseppe’s neck.

 _Ah_. He’d been right.

“Food’s here?” Giuseppe said, sounding a little winded, but grinning nonetheless as he and his date made their ways back to their seats, where their food awaited them. On the way, Jeremiah lightly swatted him in the rear, making the ginger jump and snicker. “Great! I’m starving.”

“Starving, huh?” Jeremiah grinned.

“Mm-hm.” Giuseppe offered a wink.

“Well, then, let’s hurry and eat.” 

Sundance got the feeling there was a lot more being said than… what was actually being said. But judging by the looks on the others’ faces, as they all began to dig in to their meals, he wondered if he was the only one who noticed. Or perhaps he was just imagining things again.

Boy, love was complicated.


End file.
